About

Roll & Rule - Are You Game?

Why am I doing this?

I love games. I love tangible games. I love pen and paper games. I love dice games. I have a 19 month old boy who is incredibly smart and already knows numbers, colors and shapes. I want to build something for him to grow up with like I had with Dungeons and Dragons. Building a community around this simple to play dice game will be fun for me, you and eventually my little guy.

What is Roll & Rule?

RnR takes place on a world called Aeranor, a world where no one uses armour or physical weapons like guns. Everyone uses crystals. Shields and Amplifiers float around people as they walk around and seek fame and fortune. Aeranor is a world that has a history, but it's largely unwritten. That is where players of RnR come in. As you play the game, I encourage you to write stories about your battles and how you came upon the crystals that make up the conflict element of the Mythos of Aeranor.

RnR consists of your standard fantasy polygon dice but with a twist, you'll read about it later. You'll be doing something you have done all your life, adding and subtracting. You've used them all your gaming life.

The Dice :

4-Sided

6-Sided

8-Sided

10-Sided

12-Sided

20-Sided

C20, C12, C10, C8, C6, C4 - Crystals with their number of facets.

They range in colors and sizes too. But with RnR, you have 8 primary colors that you use to battle against each other. All dice are 15mm in size. Each facet has a number on it, so when you roll, that number is the value you use, you then add any additional colors that appear around the perimeter of the facet. For instance, a 6-sided die will have up to 4 different colors. As an example, if you roll a BLUE 6-sided and the number that appears is 5, you then add any additional blue pips that are shown on the corners. Lets say 3 of them are also blue. That means your opponent must defend against an 8. The body of each crystal (the dice are called crystals in this game) will be one core color from below.

Example C10 with Random Pips

The Colors:

Green versus Red

Yellow versus Purple

Orange versus Blue

Black versus White

Players can roll any color they want, but only the opposite color counts. So, lets take that 6-sided die example from above. You can roll an Orange 6-sided to defend against the blue die, and the value you roll will be used. However, if you do not have an Orange die to defend with, you can choose a die that has orange pips anywhere on it. The only problem is that the orange pip is the only value you will defend with. That means, if you choose to use a Yellow 6-sided die to defend with and it has 4 pips showing when you roll it, you are defending with a value of 4.

Game Play:

There are three phases to the game; Charging, Combat & Recovery

Introduction: After players decide on the number of crystals they
bring to a battle, they choose how many health points to start with,
shorter games have smaller amounts of health, but a typical adventurer
has 20 health. It is reflected in a 20-sided die.

Charging: The
first round allows players to decide if they want to use a 4-sided
crystal as an amplifier for a future attack, or any die as a shield.
When an amplifier is decided, a player has to roll to set the power of
the amplifier. When a shield is decided, that too is rolled to discover
the power of the shield. In both instances, you can only have up to 8
amplifiers (one for each color) and 8 shields (each shield defends against all colors). Shields can be acquired directly from combat
as well, but more on that later. Once a shield is up, it can only be
destroyed whereas an amplifier can be rerolled for a chance to increase
the amplification of that color of casting.

Combat: Once the charging round has completed, the combat round occurs and that means
that a player rolls a die or dice, and your other combatants also roll
the complementary die or dice [Red versus Green, Black versus White,
Yellow versus Purple, Blue versus Orange], and then the face values are
augmented by the pips on the corner of each facet of die, add the
amplifiers, reduced by combatant shields, and any pass-thru damage is
committed to the caster where health is lowered. Any crystal that
survives a combat round, can become a shield at the reduced value, or it
can return to your satchel to recover energy for the next round of
combat.

Recovery: After the combat round is completed, a
recovery round commences where amplifiers can be re-rolled, or crystals
can be destroyed to recover health. You can reform crystals that have
been destroyed in combat by destroying other crystals, or remove shields
if you have reached the maximum number of shields (8). Shields can only
be removed during the recovery round unless destroyed during the combat
round.

Rinse & Repeat until you have eliminated your opponents.

How are the dice (In the mythos of the game, they are crystals) made?

The crystals (dice) are made using a 3D printer that also prints nearly any color. Remember, each type of die has one core color but multiple facets and up to 8 different colors of pips that impact the roll. When three or more facets come to a point, the point is colored one of the 8 colors of the game. On a 6-Sided die, there are 24 (4 pips per facet) additional points that impact the total value rolled. Additionally, there are Amplifiers and Shields that are also subject to these "Pips".

I've spoken to a couple dozen engineers and come to the conclusion that conventional PMMA (Plastic) injection molding processes are not possible due to the complexity of the design. Particularly the 12- and 20-sided dice make it impossible to fabricate with PIM.

The Plan:

As the Kickstarter campaign progresses, plans are rolling along to build a community website at RollAndRule.com, deploy the site and so on. Personal blogs, forums, groups and more will be made public and developed with feedback of those interested in offering advice. People can gather to plan meets, share stories they write about the world(s) of Roll & Rule and where people can keep a library of their crystals (dice). Additional perks such as bags, chests, gaming mats and more are planned for release during the Kickstarter campaign.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $200 or more
About $200

You will get 200 collectible dice. Anything above 100 will provide you with enough variety to plan a style of battle to Roll & Rule, with 200 you can compete in a tournament battle. You will also get your name in BOLD on the Wall of Honor.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $350 or more
About $350

You will get 350 collectible dice. This is more than enough dice to create your own planned strategy and deal with anything your opponent might throw at you. You will also get your name in BOLD on the Wall of Honor.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $1,000 or more
About $1,000

Tournaments? I've got enough dice to start one. You'll get 1500 dice. That is enough to supply 50 people with dice for an extreme battle to Roll & Rule! There is a catch though, every dice could be unique. So pick your fights and plan your battles because you don't know how the dice will land.